Letter from Michael and Robert Rosenberg to President Eisenhower

In a letter to President Eisenhower, 10-year-old Michael Rosenberg and 6-year-old Robert Rosenberg pleaded for the lives of their parents, convicted spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, stating, “We love them very much.” Julius and Ethel were U.S. citizens sentenced to death for passing secret information on the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. Supporters of the Rosenbergs lobbied for an executive pardon, but it was not granted. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed on June 19, 1953. After their parents’ deaths, the Rosenberg children were adopted by Abel and Anne Meeropol.

National Archives, Records of the Office of the Pardon Attorney